Proston Dam (Lake Boondooma) - September 2013

 Friday 13/9/13

Well we finally organised a bit of a long weekend camping.  We left about 1/2 hour late, the plan of course was mucked up by Craig's work.  On the road at 2.30pm heading for Proston Dam (Lake Boondooma) for 2 nights - WooHoo!  The idea was to try and sneak in a winter camp before it starts getting hot - ha it's been summer temperatures already up here!  At least it's supposed to be around 8 degrees at night this weekend, perfect for a campfire and the days should be around 30 degrees & fine - brilliant!

For a Friday afternoon the traffic north on the Bruce Highway to Gympie was very good.  Just north of Gympie we hung a left onto the Wide Bay Highway heading west to Kilkivan, Goomeri and Murgon.  Now, this is where it got interesting, the Hema GPS took us on some very interesting back roads through Silverleaf, Mondure & Kawl Kawl (some roads were closed and we had re-route, some didn't exist and we had to re-route), roads varied from double lane bitumen, single lane bitumen to dirt roads.  Finally we turned right onto Wondai Proston Road which took us through Hivesville and into Proston.  Lake Boondooma is about 20klms north west of Proston and there's a sign in Proston directing you to Lake Boondooma, but somehow due to some miscommunication between Craig, myself & the Hema GPS we managed to miss the turnoff to the Dam (yes I know, even with a sign right there saying turn that way).  A bit of a u turn down the road, then a left turn onto the correct road and we're back on track toward the dam.




Arrived about 5.30pm, checked into the Kiosk - we've gone with a lakeside campsite, so no booking is needed.  Campground info:  Lakeside campsites are unpowered, pets are welcome on a leash, 4 amenities blocks servicing the lakeside campsites, camp kitchen, campfires allowed.  The lakeside campsite is $22.00 per night for 2 people and we picked up a 20kg bag of firewood for $12.50 at the kiosk.  We headed west from the kiosk first to have a look for a spot, but it was quite busy at that end, so came back and found a spot down in front of the kiosk, next to the boat ramp and on the lake.  A little bit of manoeuvring to get the car fairly level, opened up the camper, down went the shade cloth as it was mostly dirt.  By this time we were experiencing passing showers, so we decided to whack up the awning then, so we could stay dry while cooking dinner.  We're getting quicker at putting up the awning now, takes us about 10mins.

One thing we did forget to do on our way in was fill up the water tank in the camper.  So a few trips with the bucket up to the camp kitchen and at least we had enough water for the night.  Now for a relaxing drink and get dinner on the go - leftover Beef & Mushroom stew with some nice crusty garlic Ciabatta bread.  Considering the time and the passing showers we decided to heat dinner up on the stove top tonight.  The showers stopped, but then the wind moved in and didn't go away.  Made it a bit cool too.

9pm and we're off to bed, it's a bit unpleasant sitting in the wind which is blowing straight in and it's been a long day for Craig.  Probably would be one of our earliest nights while camping and only a one rum night for boy.

Saturday 14/9/13

Awoken in part this morning by people going off in their tinnies fishing & also Boris needing to go urgently for a pee.  Picture this:  Craig in his Mr Men "Mr Grumpy" pj's complete with bed head, wondering around behind Boris while he found a spot - talk about funny!

So 6.30am no sleep in this morning.  Upon emerging from the camper our neighbour Greg wondered over for a chat, so I got coffee organised while boy talked - Mr Have-A-Chat himself!  Sat with our coffee for a while watching the activity on the lake, very relaxing really.  8am it's time for breakfast, how time flies when you're doing nothing.  Cleaned up after our Bacon & Egg burgers, Boris went for a dip and then we just sat reading and watching for a bit.  Soooo relaxing, chatting away to each other, boy in his element watching the boats being launched at the ramp next to us.  He had plenty of tinnies to watch and keep him amused, of course telling me his opinion on each of them as to whether they would work for us.  We awoke this morning to an overcast sky, which eventually cleared to a nice blue sky and the wind gradually increased to a gale during the day, blowing from the west, so at least the galley/awning area was protected.

View from our camp - lakeside campsites

View from our camp - lakeside campsites

View from our camp - lakeside campsites

 

 11am, decided we'd go for a walk around the park and check out the other camping areas & give Boris some exercise since he's on his rope all the time (I know probably not the most intelligent decision to go walking in the middle of the day). 

Lakeside Camping

Lakeside Camping

Lakeside Camping

Took some photos of the park, Boris had a couple of swims here and there, looked at more tinnies, checked out where to camp next time we come.  The lakeside camping area is quite large, but sloppy in some areas.  As I said earlier there is about 4 amenities blocks spread through these areas. 

Lakeside Camping

There is also another unpowered camp area "the lookout", which is set back from the lake and then the tiered powered sites also set back from the lake.

The Lookout Campground

Powered Tiered Campsites

Kiosk/Office

Our camp

 Nearly 12.30pm so we headed back to camp for our lunch of Hot Dogs and watch the comings and goings around the park.  Oh, Craig did put a few yabby traps out this morning, red claw in this here dam you know.  Well, they are still in the dam and not in our yabby traps!

Now you won't believe this, while eating lunch we were watching this Kimberly Caravan driving around looking for a spot.  I hear you say "so what", well firstly we hadn't seen one of these types of Kimberley's before, it's not the camper trailer or the compact caravan, this was pretty much a full size looking caravan.  Secondly, we felt sorry for the poor buggers doing laps trying to find somewhere to fit in while towing this big thing.  We had commented to each other, the could fit in the spot next to us if they were good at manoeuvring the caravan - we didn't care, we're going home tomorrow anyway.

On their 3rd lap they stopped in front of our camp and the fellow was coming over to ask if we minded them camping next us.  As he drew closer to our camp Craig says to me "isn't that the guy who camped behind us at Birdsville with his wife in the roof top tent?".  Well, low and behold it certainly was.  He said hello and Craig gave him a very friendly hello and said "how ya going, it's been a while".  Poor fellow looked at us rather confused, until we said "You camped behind us at Birdsville at Easter" - you could actually see the light bulb come on in his head.  I say again, you just wouldn't believe it would you.

Arvo nibbles

Craig gave him a hand to get the caravan into position in the spot next to us and with the temperature hanging around 34 degrees by now, we sat under our awning in the shade catching up with them.  As we didn't do names etc., while in Birdsville (I know - that was rude), we sorted that out.  Vantha & his wife Borey are from Kingston in Brisbane, so we did the phone number exchange as well.  Vantha's hoping to catchup with us again camping somewhere - he finds Craig's sense of humour funny (don't ask me why)....  Afternoon nibbles at 4.30pm with drinks of course and we're waiting/hoping that the wind will die down so we can have a fire tonight and cook the Lamb Shanks on the tripod over it.  5pm decision made that the wind wasn't going to die down, so Lamb Shanks were started cooking on the stove top again.  Bugger....

Saturday's sunset

Eventually the wind did die down, but it was too late to worry about making a campfire then.  Cleanup after dinner, showers and then hit the hay about 10pm.





 Sunday 15/9/13

A fair amount of early fisherman going out this morning, but we managed to sleep in until 7am.  We awoke to a beautiful fine morning, with just a light breeze blowing.  Very pleasant in contrast to yesterday morning.  We finally used our stove top coffee percolator this morning, it's had more use at home since we bought it.  Makes a very nice coffee too!  Pretty relaxing morning, watching the boats coming in and out, Craig checked his yabby pots again - the red claw levels in the Lake haven't been effected...  9am, time for breakfast - bacon, scrambled eggs & toast, yummy.

Tried our new TV antenna this morning, it hooks up to my computer which has a built in digital tuner.  Sadly we couldn't pick up any TV stations down by the lake, which the lady from the kiosk said would probably be the case.

Started packing up around 10am, but someone got distracted chatting to people at the boat ramp for over 1/2 an hour!  The Hilux must have wanted to stay a little longer, as it wouldn't start - somewhat annoying as it was just serviced on Thursday.  It did start eventually thankfully (back to the mechanics next week I think).  Ready to head home about 11.15am, bid farewell to Vantha & Borey and hit the road.  We went for look at another section of the lakeside camping on our way out - a bit too sloppy for us, then we took a left onto the main road to see where that went - to another powered campground but it's up on the hill overlooking the dam and the main campground.

11.45am and we're heading in the direction of home now.  Might stop in for lunch at a little country pub on the way home, we'll see....

We're not one for travelling the same route twice, so a couple of k's west of Goomeri we headed south on a minor road to Kilcoy, passing Kinbombi Falls, then joining onto Kilcoy Murgon Road (which is a dirt road), passing through Gallangowan State Forest, Yabba State Forest, Jimna State Forest, and Conondale State Forest.  Beautiful drive, although no country pubs to stop at for lunch.  We did have a short stop to fill up water bottles and for Craig to consume one of the Vanilla Slices we had in the fridge.  Eventually we got back onto bitumen and drove into Kilcoy from the north - haven't come into Kilcoy from the north before, interesting to see that side of the town.  Then we headed east on the D'Aguilar Highway, turned north east onto Kilcoy Beerwah Road heading to Peachester and then through to home.  Arrived home about 3.30pm.

Total Klms:  460klms approx.
Camping cost:  $44.00 for 2 nights + $12.50 for 20kg bag of firewood.
Comments on campground:  Very nice, park managers were friendly & helpful, clean amenities.
Will we go again:  Hell yes!
www.lakeboondooma.com.au

Note on car problem:  Mechanics found that the young fellow who changed the fuel filters over hadn't put the new filter in properly.  Meaning from my understanding that the car was being starved of fuel.  Problem fixed.